Valerie Ann Bezanson (Living) married Jason Robert Barkhouse (10662) , son of Murray Charles Barkhouse & 5588. Beulah Frances Bezanson (Living). Born on 9 Oct 1952. Jason Robert died in East Dalhousie, Kings Co., Nova Scotia, Canada, on 26 Jun 1980; he was 27. Buried on 30 Jun 1980 in East Dalhousie, Kings Co., Nova Scotia, Canada.

Bedroom murder never solved

Lisa Brown
Lighthouse staff

Jason Barkhouse was asleep when a killer walked through his bedroom door in the early morning hours of June 26, 1980.

Sleeping beside him, his girlfriend of three months, Fern Casey, recalls hearing the basement steps creaking under the weight of footsteps. She tried to wake up Jason, but he was a sound sleeper.

"The next thing I remember was somebody standing in the bedroom door," Fern says. "It was a large person. They filled the doorway."

That's the last thing Fern remembers until the alarm clock woke her a few hours later. Twenty-seven-year-old Jason was driving a pulp truck for her brother and had planned to be up before daylight to get on the road.

"When the alarm went off, I guess I didn't realize that Jason was on the floor and not in bed," Fern recalls. "I kept shaking him and he wouldn't wake up, but I didn't realize there was anything wrong."

She got dressed and walked across the road to the neighbours' house. Albert Bezanson was outside working on his daughter's car so she could go to work.

"I asked him if he'd go over and see what was wrong with Jason. He must have looked at me and realized that there was something wrong. I remember lying on their couch and then I don't remember anything else," Fern says.

Albert recalls looking up to find Fern bleeding and saying she couldn't get Jason to wake up.

"There was a gouge on her head there," he says brushing his brow, "and the back of her head was bleeding. I didn't know what the heck was wrong, but I knew something happened over there that was drastic."

Nervous of what might face him, Albert called his son Blair who lived nearby. Blair went to the small bungalow and discovered his friend's body in a room covered with blood. Jason had been beaten to death and his body mutilated.

It was the beginning of a mystery that has gone on for more than two decades in the small community of East Dalhousie, just across the county line above North River and Parkdale. Despite extensive investigation, the RCMP never learned who killed Jason in his own bedroom. No one has ever been charged in his death.

Albert and his wife Ruby knew Jason well. He was Ruby's nephew and grew up just yards up the hill from their home.

There were rumours that Jason sometimes drank too much, but the Bezansons never saw any evidence of that. Jason would stop in and visit sometimes, particularly with Albert after he lost his own father when he was 19.

But on that moonlit night, Albert and Ruby didn't see or hear anything out of the ordinary. They wish they had so they could have helped solve the case all those years ago.

"It was a summer night. We had the windows up, but we never heard one thing," Ruby says.

Investigators brought in a tracking dog a few days later, but it had rained hard in the interim. The dog followed a scent to the brook below Jason's home, but there the trail ended.

The authorities believe the killer went in through the kitchen door, although there were no signs of forced entry. Fern recalls she and Jason went out for a little while before settling in for the night and thinks they might have left the door open then. At night, the doors were usually locked.

The killer left through the basement, leaving a smear of blood on the door. The brook near the house leads to Black Duck Lake a short distance away.

"I wondered lots of time if they'd have drug that lake if they'd have found anything," Ruby says. She believes investigators might have found clothing or whatever weapon was used to strike Jason.

The police told them some sort of object was used due to the injuries on the body and other evidence at the scene. The killer swung it high enough and with enough force to mark the bedroom ceiling.

Investigators spent days at Jason's small home and around the area. At one point, police said they were very close to knowing what happened, but that never materialized.

For a time, the Bezansons say, people in the rural area were frightened and nervous.

"We used to go to bed and never lock our door," Ruby recalls. "I almost barred the doors after that. We were terrified. We barred and locked everything."

The evening before his murder, Jason visited both the Bezansons and his mother, who was staying down the road with his grandmother. He was tired and told everyone he was going home to bed because he had to work the next morning.

"We have no clues. I'm sure we would have told years ago if we knew," Ruby says.

The only person who might have provided information has little recollection of the night in question. Fern was also badly beaten and suffered serious head injuries.

Her arm had a visible dent where doctors said she must have lifted it to shield herself from blows with a round object. The flesh was scraped away from the left side of her forehead down to the skull. She still has a dent in her skull on top of her head.

Doctors cut her skull to relieve pressure on her brain. She still has a plastic plate in her head and problems with her balance. She had no senses of smell or taste for years after the attack.

She was 30 at the time.

Fern doesn't recall the assailant saying anything to them. She remembers being afraid, but wasn't the type of person to faint in fright. Doctors have told her she can't remember due to her head injuries.

She was hypnotized twice, the first time shortly after her month-long stay in hospital. She was hypnotized again since, probably seven or eight years ago.

"I could only bring back so much and that was it," she says.

She's spent years wondering who was responsible for the attack. Jason had been assaulted a few months earlier, but otherwise seemed to get along well with people in the community.

Police believe Jason knew the killer. The genital mutilation would indicate the attacker felt a disgust with the morals of Jason's sexual past.

"Everybody liked Jason and as far as I know I didn't have any enemies," she says. "It used to just about drive me crazy. Every person that I would meet I would wonder if they were the one."

She has no doubt the killer left her for dead as well as Jason. Doctors told her she would have bled to death in another hour. The alarm clock saved her life.

"They wanted to kill both of us," Fern says. "I'm not sure if it was someone who was just after Jason and I just happened to be there, or if it was somebody who wanted us both. I don't really know." (Bridgewater, N.S.: South Shore Now, 28 Nov. 2001)

Judy Mae married Vince Mahe.

Paul Alan married Marisa Jean Hiltz (Living) (11625) , daughter of 6479. Paul Merrill Hiltz & Ruth Marie Wile.

Kevin Richard married Loretta Wilson.